Sunday, June 01, 2008

Creative Tolerance

I was having an interesting discussion with some friends yesterday about the recent clean chit given to the famous painter, M F Husain by the High Court for obscene portrayal of certain goddesses’ and Bharat Mata in some of his paintings. There are still 3 cases pending against the man –hope those are resolved soon as well – anyways, the whole discussion got me intrigued about the case and on googling it up for more details, what I found sure did surprise me – the judgement given by Justice Kaul in this matter deserves a round of applause. Besides the legal aspects of the case, his supplementary observations definitely are worth a mention -–two points particularly stand out.

One – he rejects the tendency of certain individuals and sections to be offended by works of art or literature. If one is offended – one should not read the specific book or look at the particular painting, but one has no right to stop someone else from expressing himself. What is vital is to look at any work of art from the artist’s point of view rather than that of the viewer.

Two – mindful of the fact that he may come across to certain sections as someone who does not understand that liberal attitude to art just reflects the mindset of a paltry minority with a vast majority only being offended with the kind of art his judgement will protect, he goes on to defend his line of thinking with the following lines – "A crude view of democracy gives a distorted picture…In real democracy, a dissenter must feel at home and not be looking nervously looking all around fearing captivity or harm for his unconventional or critical views. There should be freedom for the thought we hate. Freedom of speech has no meaning if there is no freedom after speech".

He concludes his statement with a hope that his judgement will serve as a prologue to a broader thinking and greater tolerance for the creative field. To hear such language and logic from an Indian High Court Judge - who has all the liberty to interpret the right to freedom in the most conservative fashion – sure does give a lot of hope for the future of creative expression in India.

However, all claps apart, how practical it is to expect such liberal attitude from all Indians? To what extent can odd and offendable forms of creative expression be ignored in a widely conservative country like India? Should there be no social bounds on creative expression? Can art get away with blasphemy? Is Husain right in taking liberty with his depiction of religion? Can it be ignored in the name of artistic license? Doesn’t art have a moral bearing on the society that inspires its very existence? Or does art merely depict a society’s hidden –sometimes unthinkable - perception on many unspoken and taboo issues? These questions remain – perhaps with no absolute answers.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

popularity matters.. sometimes popularity of the person may bias the judgment, i feel :(

Anonymous said...

@Anonymous: Yep u r right. But one needs to remember that in a democracy ,every individual - a celebrity or an unknown face on the street - has a right to express himself/herself in any way he/she chooses to. That's the very essence of a democracy.